It’s obvious to citizens of other nations, but not to us, that Americans as a people are becoming dangerously isolated, paranoid, and irrational.
I’m not saying 9-11 didn’t happen. I’m not saying there are no sadistic gangsters out there fighting for advantage. I’m not denying the need for local and international police work to detect terrorist cells of all sorts. Nor am I arguing that other economically powerful nations would never be tempted to challenge U.S. hegemony and try to become dominant themselves. What I’m saying is that we Americans have done just about everything wrong both before and after 9-11, and we must correct our course.
American citizens simply must break the bad habit of seeing enemies under every bed. We must stop paying out billions to build increasingly horrible weapons. Like Dr. Frankenstein, we’ve created an out-of-control monster. Millions of our fellow human beings have already been sacrificed to this monster (and its clones). And millions more are at risk, while we wallow around in denial and self-pity.
Enough! I say we shouldn’t pay protection money to the military-industrial-security complex or its friends in Wall Street any longer. Screw the boogeyman, bogus or otherwise. It’s time we make friends with the rest of humanity and seriously figure out how to beat our swords into plowshares.
There are rays of hope. Take a look at the Chemical Weapons Convention, at the World Social Forum, at Kucinich’s notion of a U.S. Department of Peace, at the friendly, peace-loving people in every spot you might visit anywhere on the globe. When we quit clinging to our fear and hatred, we can all get busy transitioning the world to a sustainable economy without poverty or war. Why not? It’s no more impossible than putting a man on the moon.
Bush might want to leave the Iraq War to his successor, but I don’t want to leave the earth in such a hazardous condition to my children and grandchildren.
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